Schmid delivers those well-chosen words

After last night's loss, coach Sigi Schmid implied he would have a few well-chosen words for his team at training today, and he apparently delivered.

After practice, Schmid gathered his team in a circle as usual. But then the team got up and headed to one touchline. They lined up along the line and then walked together across the pitch. Once at the far touchline, they remained in a straight line, which Schmid addressed them for 20-minutes or so, often gesturing for emphasis.

"That was just a little sports psych excercise that we did," Schmid said. "It's just for us. As I've said before to you guys a lot of times, the difference between winning and losing a lot of times is small, it's not big. It's not big things that changge games, it's little things that change games. Just putting the re-emphasis on that, on why we're getting so close and not finishing our chances, what's going amiss there. There were some good points brought up by the players, so I feel very good about that."

The media hadn't seen anything quite like it before, but Nate Jaqua said the overall message wasn't that different from other times when Schmid has attempted to get his team to be all it can be.

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"We've had a few of those," Nate Jaqua said. "Some talk. This is the end of the season now, we're coming up to it. We've got to play this last part and kind of hit our stride if we're going to be the team we want to be. Sometimes we're the team we want to be and sometimes we're not. Part of it is consistency and the fact that we're a young group."